Charlie Wiegert Fantasy Sports Pioneer
Charlie started playing fantasy baseball in 1984 when he worked for the sports department of a local newspaper. He ended up winning the league three years straight and also formed his own league. He was also in a league with people who worked at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis and another aerospace company where he met his eventual business partners Brian and Carol Matthews.
They approached him about creating a fantasy baseball contest in 1991. They were software programmers and he of course was very knowledgeable of fantasy baseball so they teamed up and created CDM Inc. The first year the league was called Carol's Fantasy Baseball Challenge and they marketed it with small classified ads in newspapers and magazines around the country.
A lucky break came when Charlie went to the local Sporting News' office in St. Louis to pick up a copy of their basketball magazine where they placed an advertisement for their contest. As he was reviewing the magazine he noticed they forgot to place CDM's ad. However, while he was there, he bumped into Gary Levy and told him he wanted to meet Bill Topaz, saying: "I ran into a guy I was familiar with from playing in a media softball league, Gary Levy. Upon inquiring why I was there, I explained, and told him the guy I really wanted to meet was Bill Topaz, who ran the Sporting News." Ironically Bill was Gary's boss. Gary set up a meeting with them within two weeks. When they met with Bill Topaz they pitch the idea of working together and creating the Sporting News Fantasy Baseball Challenge. By the time they left the meeting that day, the deal was done. They quickly expanded to fantasy football basketball and hockey contests since sporting news had magazines in all four sports.
Charlie helped form the Fantasy Sports Trade Association and was an important person in the fight against MLBAM and MLBPA to give small fantasy companies the ability to use historical data. He was also inaugurated in the FSTA (now FSGA) Hall of Fame in 2001.
Check out the entire Fantasy Sports Pioneer Interview Series.
3/19/2020
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:55With Brandon Staley leaving to become the head coach of the Chargers, Sean McVay and the Rams are once again looking for a defensive coordinator.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:50The two quarterbacks spent a long time together on the Superdome turf after Sunday's tilt, with Tom Brady even slinging one more pass.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:47Tom Brady's best game in three tries against New Orleans kept the Buccaneers moving on in the NFL playoffs, and has Saints quarterback Drew Brees headed home - perhaps for good. Brady and the Bucs' offense turned three of four Saints turnovers into touchdowns and Tampa Bay beat New Orleans 30-20 in the divisional round of the playoffs Sunday night.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:30Nobody has repeated as Super Bowl champion since the New England Patriots in 2003 and 2004. And those back-to-back titles weren't just down to talent and coaching.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:25Despite a 28-point loss in the first meeting back in October, Matt LaFleur's team are the early favorite to advance to Super Bowl LV.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:25It's not looking likely that the Minnesota Vikings will be able to land Houston Texans QB Deshaun Watson.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:21The Los Angeles Chargers have hired Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Brandon Staley as the team's head coach. The Chargers made the decision Sunday after having a second interview with Staley. The interview was held a day after the Rams were eliminated from the playoffs with a 32-18 loss to the Green Bay Packers.
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:14The Chargers announced their agreement with Brandon Staley as the 17th head coach in franchise history. Staley served as the defensive coordinator for the Rams in 2020 after three seasons as an outside linebackers coach for Chicago (2017-18) and Denver (2019). The Chargers will introduce Staley at a news conference Thursday. “It doesn’t matter if [more]
- Mon, 1-18-2021 04:06What does the general population think of the Chargers' hiring of Brandon Staley as their new head coach?
- Mon, 1-18-2021 03:53Saints quarterback Drew Brees met with the media, more than an hour after Sunday night’s season-ending loss to the Buccaneers. He was asked right out of the gates whether he has played his last game. Prefacing the response by saying, with a smile, that he’s only going to answer the question once, Brees said, “I’m [more]